amari's corner

Dialogue: Infinite Tortoises

1. My friend, the Elk!
2. Ms. Deer! What’s new?
3. Right now, I’m just enjoying my Long Vacation.
4. And how is that?
5. Too long. I’ve come up with a few characters to keep me entertained. I like to Live Vicariously through them.
6. Tell me about them!
7. Sure. The first one is a tortoise named LV1.
8. An odd name.
9. Maybe so.
10. What does she like to do?
11. She likes to think about her own little character. A tortoise, named LV2.
12. What a beautiful name. What about her, then? What does LV2 like to do?
13. She also likes to come up with characters! She—wait. This might take a while. Let me introduce these characters to you using a simple rule instead.
    - Rule #1: I have come up with a tortoise named LV1.
    - Rule #2: If there exists a tortoise named LVx, where x is just some number, then LVx has come up with her own character named LVx+1.

14. I see. So LV1 created LV2, who created LV3, then LV4, and so on. It seems like the number on the name denotes how many “levels down” the character is. Do any of them feel sad that their only purpose in existence is to just come up with another character?
15. No, because they are all my characters in the end, and so to give them pain needlessly would be sadistic and cruel. (Not that there’s anything wrong with sadism.)
16. Of course. Some of my good friends are sadists. Hmmm. Hey, could you go backwards using Rule #2?
17. How do you mean?
18. If you told me there was a character LVx, then could I deduce the existence of an LVx-1? For example, if you told me there was an LV4, then I could safely assume there was an LV3.
19. Not quite. If that were true, then how would going backwards treat you with the first one, LV1?
20. Hm, well… Going backwards is essentially going “out” a level… Like, if you asked me which tortoise came up with LV4, I’d tell you it was LV3. That’s going out a layer. So then who came up with LV1…?
    Ah! Maybe *you* should be named LV0!
21. That would be Less than Viable, Obviously—
22. But wait! We are both just characters in someone else’s story! Her name is written right at the top of this webpage! So maybe Amari’s true name is LV-1.
23. That’s not—
24. But then how can we go backwards from here? Who came up with Amari? …GOD? Is GOD’s true name LV-2?
25. I beg of you! This is nonsense. Rule #2 is phrase in the form of an “If X, then Y” statement. These sorts of statements only apply when X is true. If you don’t know if X is true, then the statement does not apply, regardless of what Y is. It’s a common fallacy.
26. Hmm. Fine. Well, I still find it interesting that you were able to describe an infinite number of characters using just two rules. It sort of reminds me of mathematical induction.
27. Induction? I prefer gas stovetops for cooking.
28. Cooking? Ooh, what’s for lunch? Tortoise stew?
29. Haha, unfortunately not since these characters are all imaginary anyways.
30. I am quite hungry though. I think LV0 would be Lovely Venison…
31. gulp!

June 26th, 2024